Connect to history

As part of our commitment to supporting the arts, we've partnered with acclaimed historical filmmaker Ken Burns.

Bank of America is proud to sponsor the work of Ken Burns and Florentine Films. We share Ken Burns's vision to make U.S. history into a riveting narrative, not just homework, and create a lasting impact with the general public and in classrooms around the country.

In 272 words Abraham Lincoln managed to consecrate a battlefield, heal a nation, reshape a democracy, and inspire a generation of schoolkids who’d never given a speech before in their lives.

The Address TV Spothttp://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/Click here to get the whole story.bankofamerica1359940|enter782|cr-en954http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/_blank1359940|enter782|2014_810||1359940|enter782|2014_270||1359940|enter782|2014_00||

ken-burns-cnbc-addressdefaultPlayertrueblack/assets/images/ken-burns/kburns_878x494.jpg|Ken Burns|Hear Ken Burns discuss his new app and his latest film, The Address||

Interviewee: Ken Burns

Title: Documentary Filmmaker

Channel: CNBC US

Date: 12 March 2014

Time: 11:00 AM EST

Duration: 6 minutes 49 seconds

Interviewer 1: Carl Quintanilla

Interviewer 2: Kayla Tausche

Carl Quintanilla

To watch all 25 of Ken Burns' award-winning documentaries you would need to set aside 136 hours, basically 5- 1/2 straight days, but now there is an app for that. The new Ken Burns iPad app curates all of his films into easily-digestible formatic playlists. In addition to the app, Burns has six new films in the pipeline for PBS through the end of the current decade including 'The Address', which premieres on April 15. Ken Burns joins us this morning at Post 9. Ken, it is always great to have you. Welcome back.

Ken Burns

Thank you, Carl. Great to be here.

Carl Quintanilla

You know, they say apps are content driven, and...

Ken Burns

Yeah!

Carl Quintanilla

...you've done some amazing content.

Ken Burns

Well, it...this is a great way for people and for me to look at my work in a different way. I've covered many, many topics in American history, but this is a way to sort of make...to be a DJ, to make playlists for you, to say there are themes that recur, like art, like innovation, like hard times, like war, uh, like race, that are all throughout, all... teachers and kids and just citizens playing with it, all these little moments in time floating through space, so we're thrilled with it. The response has been great.

Kayla Tauche

It's been over a year that you've actually been working on this before it launched in February. What actually put the light bulb off in your head that said, 'This is the way that we should go with it'?

Ken Burns

Oh, you know, we're moving to many new platforms and PBS has kept ahead of the pace and we've been able to download films, but this is a way to say, as I spoke to people, I saw recurring themes. You know, I just finished a film, thanks to our corporate underwriter, Bank of America, on the Gettysburg address, a group of kids who have learning differences that memorize it and then publicly recite it. That's gonna be on PBS on April 15, tax day, so if you need some relief from the grief, these inspiring kids will give you all of that. But that will be added to the app and we'll be isolating things from there, and as we add 'The Roosevelts' and 'Onward' on Jackie Robinson and the history of cancer and the war in Vietnam and country music and Ernest Hemingway, that's just a 20/20. I know what I'm doing every...every day, every moment until then.

Carl Quintanilla

You know, I asked you during the break, I think I asked you the last time you were here, whether or not this kind of distribution would outpace, eventually, just linear television in general.

Ken Burns

Well, I think...

Carl Quintanilla

f that day's coming, how far away is it?

Ken Burns

You know, it's, um, pretty soon. It's right around the bend and that's why you want to be prepared. You don't want to abandon the old forms. PBS has a huge, loyal audience that is bigger than HBO's. I mean, this is an amazing institution, but we also have to be nimble. We're in schools and have been for decades and decades, and so we need to do new ways to reach these kids. I have a huge website at PBS.org/KenBurns, which aggregates for teachers and students specific lesson plans across all the films and it's sort of scaled so that each new film we can easily add an economy of scale that makes each new website, each new film easy to add to this mix, so together with the popular app, this website at PBS, you know, we're really covering the waterfront and anticipating where people are gonna get stuff, so we'll have good viewership, but then you'll see that the downloads have also been terrific, and that's the future.

Kayla Tausche

Well, we joked that it would take 5-1/2 days to watch everything, but the current viewing habits would suggest that some people might actually do that.

Ken Burns

You know, every time I made a film, like 'Civil War' 24 years ago, people say, “Well, no one's gonna watch this. They're all into an MTV mode.” Well, they sat down and watched the whole thing and now, because we digest, we binge, because these things are available on Netflix, people will sit down with our big series coming up, which I think is one of the best things we've done on the Roosevelts, Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor. We got a little-known actor named Meryl Streep to read off-camera the diaries of Eleanor Roosevelt, and she knocks it out of the park. Paul Giamatti is T.R., but you could watch the whole 14 hours on one plane flight or whatever you wanna do.

Kayla Tausche

But do you worry that it will ratchet up the pressure to turn out some of these documentaries faster as people get hungrier for that kind of thing?

Ken Burns

You know, we're the Paul Masson of documentary film companies. You're too young to remember that, but we'll sell no film before it's time. We take our time. We get it right and only then do we let it go. I'm already working on six films at once. I couldn't add another one without being the straw that broke the camel's back, but we've got enough stuff in the pipeline that I think it will keep that appetite without kind of, uh, overstaying our welcome.

Carl Quintanilla

I was gonna say, you know, so many people...because we're moving to mobile...

Ken Burns

Yeah.

Carl Quintanilla

...you know, print is condensing.

Ken Burns

Yes!

Carl Quintanilla

And someone might think, well, Ken is gonna have to alter the way he works or the way he produces.

Ken Burns

I actually think that things like 'House of Cards' and 'Breaking Bad' and 'True Detective' and lots of stuff, 'Downton Abbey' on PBS, I mean, the great thing about 'The Roosevelts' is that this is a real Downton Abbey. It happens to be true and it's American made. All of those provide a kind of cover and a legitimacy for saying, taking that iPad and going and sitting in bed and watching three or four episodes, and then picking up the next day. I love that habit. It's good for me.

Carl Quintanilla

Favorite things you watch right now, that you binge on?

Ken Burns

Well, I just, uh, I'm now slowing down on the second season of 'House of Cards'. I went through the first eight like I was, you know, an addict, and then I'm slowing it down and I'm friends with the writer and creator, Beau Willimon, and I've just been taking...says, “Well?” He says, “Well, I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet.” And then I just, you know, 'True Detective' was great and didn't always watch it broadcast.

Kayla Tausche

So, for someone who wants to download your app, what will it cost them?

Ken Burns

Well, it's for free to download and you get this sort of whole overview of it and you get one of the playlists for free that'll, you know, like the mixed tapes, and then if you want all the rest, access to all the rest, it's $9.95 and then you're in. And then the updates and the upgrades and the new films get added on and you can access all of those films and they're easy to link to PBS or to iTunes or to Netflix or wherever you want to get the full films, but you'll get access to all these mixed tapes that way.

Carl Quintanilla

Did you see the promo that we had produced before the break?

Ken Burns

Yeah.

Carl Quintanilla

You want to roll it really quick, control room?<Promo>

And we call it the iPad.

History was made with the iPad, and now the iPad is bringing history to you with the new Ken Burns app...

Carl Quintanilla

I mean...it's nice when you can look at something and you know who did it!

Ken Burns

Yeah. Well, you know, Steve started that ‘Ken Burns effect’ on all the iMac computers and has been there for a decade and he...that's when I first met him and we became friends. But I love the fact that despite all the hundreds of spoofs of my work everywhere, you know, on the Tonight Show, on Conan, things on the internet, um, uh, people still watch, you know?

Carl Quintanilla

Yeah.

Ken Burns

I guess “sincerest form of flattery”, you know! I hope, I pray!

Carl Quintanilla

Ken, it is great seeing you again.

Ken Burns

It's great to see you, Carl.

Carl Quintanilla

Please come back. Um, Ken Burns', of course, latest film is 'The Address' which premieres, as he said, on April 15 on PBS.

Important Disclaimer￼Although strenuous efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of interview transcripts, Executive Interviews and its associated companies accept no liability for what is said, for any discrepancy between the spoken and written word, or for any errors and omissions. Where doubt arises, please refer to the original broadcast video interview.

Hear Ken Burns discuss his new app and his latest film, The Addressbankofamerica1359940|enter782|cr-en954_self1359940|enter782|2014_810||1359940|enter782|2014_270||1359940|enter782|2014_00||

the-address-trailerdefaultPlayertrueblack||Click here to get the whole story.|http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/|_BLANK

THE ADDRESS TRAILERSUPER: On November 19, 1863 Abraham Lincoln traveled to the now quiet battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate a cemetery filled with the Union dead who had perished there the previous July, in the greatest battle ever fought on American soil.The President’s speech lasted just two minutes.He started off reminding his audience that it had been only 87 years since the founding of the Republic and then went on to embolden the Union cause with some of the most stirring words ever spoken.He hoped that the terrible battle might signal a “new birth of freedom” for his nation.

The Greenwood SchoolPutney, Vermont

(v/o) Teacher 1OK guys, let’s please sit up straight in our chairs, let’s get ready to start morning meeting. Today at Greenwood School. Today we are introducing the tradition here, at Greenwood, studying and memorizing the Gettysburg address. And, in a lot of ways it is a rite of passage.

Student 1: This is one of the most famous speeches of all time, and this was, what, two hundred, three hundred years ago? So even if you say it for like two minutes, it still means a lot.

Student 2: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and, um…, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Teacher 2: It always amazes me the kind of courage that the boys have. It’s very difficult when you’re a kid to be different.

Student 3: You know I don’t want people to get the wrong image that I’m, you know, that I’m disabled, or I’m challenged, or I’m handicapped. Because even though I know that’s not the case for people that go to this school, if you have a learning disability they’re not gonna say you have a learning disability, they’re gonna say you’re dumb, you know?Student 4: “..to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly”… why can’t he switch it around “what have so far nobly missed?” That’s why, that’s why they have Olde English.

Therapist: You can do this. I, personally, as your therapist, I don’t care whether you do it or not. What I care about is that you not, not do it because it’s fearful for you.

Student 5: I just don’t want to do it.

Student 6: If I recite this address in front of people, it can actually make you feel like I can do anything I want, and will eventually make me feel like a new man I guess.“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

Student 1: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

(v/o) Student 3: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”

(v/o) Student 7: “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.”

(v/0) Student 8: “that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion.”

Student 1: “from these, it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion”

Student 9: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain”Student 10: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

SUPER:

The AddressA Film by Ken BurnsComing April 2014

The Address; A Film by Ken Burns - Coming April 2014http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/Click here to get the whole story.1359940|enter782|cr-en954http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/_blank1359940|enter782|2014_810||1359940|enter782|2014_270||1359940|enter782|2014_00||

what-csr-meansdefaultPlayertrueblack/assets/images/Andrew_P_Still_878x494.jpg|Andrew Pleper|Hear more about what Corporate Social Responsibility means to us.||

Hi, I am Andrew I run corporate social responsibility for Bank of America.

Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR, as we call it, are the ideals and the values by which we run the company. It’s an important part rebuilding trust. It’s an important part of managing risk, it’s an import and part of creating healthier communities in which to do business, all of which are in the long term best interest of our shareholders.

Writing a check is the easy part of CSR. The hard part and the part that people are understandably skeptical about, is making sure you're running your business in a way where their interests come first and our success flows from that.

That's why corporate social responsibility leads with your business practices. Your products have to be safe, people have to understand what you're offering, they have to think you're being fair, and they have to understand what we are doing is in their best interest rather than our best interest.

I have one of the greatest jobs that someone can have. I truly believe that, because you have enormous capabilities, financial resources, human capital. When you are able to harness all that you're able to see real impact. To make a loan to a woman entrepreneur who's starting a new business and creating 10 or 15 jobs in a community... to provide a student an opportunity to go to Washington D.C. and learn about leadership and public service...Every day we wake up thinking about a potential solution to a problem that is relevant in our society. Today we may be supporting our troops, addressing hunger, tomorrow we may be facing the issue of global health. We will always be thinking of creative ways to be as productive a partner as we can be.

The corporate mission of Bank of America is to make the financial lives of customers, communities and clients better. That’s why our CEO Brian Moynihan tells is this all the time. CSR can be a great contributor to that goal --to that mission -- when it's done right and when it's done by leveraging all of the assets of a company with the size and scale and capabilities of Bank of America.

Hear more about what Corporate Social Responsibility means to us./en-us/global-impact/csr-report.htmlLearn morebankofamerica1359940|enter782|cr-en954Hear more about what Corporate Social Responsibility means to us./en-us/global-impact/csr-report.html_self1359940|enter782|2014_810||1359940|enter782|2014_270||1359940|enter782|2014_00||

KEN BURNS RECITES THE ADDRESSKen Burns: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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